CHAPTER XXI
AN HOUR TO TRY THE SOUL
What do you suppose Prince Edward would have done, if Tom Canty hadn'twished to be Tom Canty any more? Suppose that Tom, instead of being awell-mannered little English boy, willing to keep his proper station,had cried out at the mere thought of going back to the foulness andcruelty of Offal Court, and insisted, not unnaturally, perhaps, that hepreferred to be comfortable in a palace?
Jacqueline had never thought of this possibility, when she read "ThePrince and the Pauper," nor when she tried to translate the story intomodern terms. But she faced it now in deep dismay, as she looked atCaroline, sobbing her heart out, there in the dusk of the summer house.
For a moment Jacqueline shifted her weight from one foot to the other,and hardly knew what to do. But she was not in the habit of being turnedfrom a purpose, once her mind was made up, and her mind was very muchmade up to sleep that night at the Gildersleeve place. So down she satbeside the weeping Caroline, and laid a hard little sunburnt hand uponher shoulder.
"Don't be a baby, Carol," she said, quite fiercely, because she didn'twant to let herself pity Caroline. "You know you _said_ you'd change,the minute I wanted to."
Caroline nodded the little dark head that was bowed desolately upon herhands.
"Well, then!" said Jacqueline, in an injured tone. "What _are_ youcrying about?"
(What, indeed?)
Caroline lifted her face and smeared her eyes with her hands.
"When--when shall we--change?" she faltered.
"Now," said Jacqueline bluntly.
Then Jacqueline remembered something that all her life she had wanted toforget--the look in the eyes of Aunt Edie's little lap dog, when she hadstruck him. Of course Jacqueline had been just a tiny thing--only fouryears old. It was right after her father died. And she had been jealousof the wee dog, because he had sat on Aunt Edie's knee sometimes whenshe wanted that place herself. So one day when she found him alone andhe turned to her for a caress, she had slapped him--hard. She gave himsugar afterward, and the cushions from her best doll-buggy, andvelvet-soft caresses, and tears of penitence. But she had neverforgotten the look in his eyes when she struck him, and she saw thatlook now in the tear-drenched eyes that Caroline turned upon her.
"Oh, Jackie! No! Not now!"
"Well, I'll be dished," said Jacqueline. The words don't do justice tothe disgust in her tone. There was no doubt that she did hate a quitter!
But Caroline was past heeding even Jacqueline's scorn.
"Oh, Jackie!" she pleaded, and suddenly she caught Jacqueline's handsand clung to them. "Can't you wait just a little longer--only tillto-morrow night? I won't ask anything more, Jackie--I won't even ask Godfor anything more--and I'll give up the piano--and your lovelyclothes--I haven't hurt 'em, I've been awful careful--and I won't cryone little bit, even if there _are_ cows at the farm--and I've been sohappy here--I didn't know things could be so lovely--I didn't knowpeople could be so happy--oh, it will be like a beautiful dream, all therest of my life--only let me have to-morrow, Jackie--please, please letme have to-morrow!"
"Ouch!" said Jacqueline. "Stop digging your finger nails into my hands!"
Caroline didn't seem to hear her. She clung like a limpet.
"Only wait till to-morrow!" she sobbed.
"Now you needn't think," snapped Jacqueline, "that I'm going to hoof itthree miles back to that nasty old farm, and sleep in that hot, stuffyroom. What's the dif. anyway between to-night and to-morrow, I shouldlike to know?"
"But it's my party," wailed Caroline. "To-morrow is my party."
Jacqueline snorted. Don't blame her too much! She had had a birthdayparty every year of her life, and a Hallowe'en party, and an Easter-eggrolling, and a Washington's Birthday party, besides always a group ofchildren to eat ice-cream and see the fireworks at Buena Vista on theFourth.
"What's a party?" she said, with contempt that was quite sincere. Noparty, she felt, could give Caroline sufficient pleasure tocounterbalance the discomfort she herself must suffer, if she had to goback to the farm now--with her tail between her legs, as she putit!--and face Aunt Martha.
"There are seven girls coming," Caroline panted out the details betweenher sobs. "I almost know Eleanor Trowbridge next door--we smile at eachother always--and the table is to be out here in the garden--and theice-cream is coming from Boston on the train. Oh, Jackie, shapes ofice-cream like flowers--the sort you see sometimes in windows--red rosesand green leaves and everything--I picked 'em out myself! And there arelittle cakes, like frogs and white m-mice--with almonds for ears! Andwe're going to have a peanut-hunt--and prizes--such scrumptiousprizes--silver bangles, and the cunningest little bottles of perfume,and dear little carved Italian boxes with pictures in the covers. Oh,Jackie, it's like ten Christmases all come together--and I--I never hada party before in all my life."
She let go of Jacqueline then. She had to use her hands to hide herface.
Jacqueline sat quite still. She was very angry with Caroline for beingsuch a baby. She was too angry to speak to her. At least she supposedthat was the reason she kept silent.
"Muzzy and I used to plan how I'd have a party," Caroline quavered inthe dusk that was now thickening fast in the summer house. "It's thenext best fun to having things. I _almost_ had a party once. But theStetson twins' father lost his money and they didn't pay Muzzy for themusic lessons--weeks and weeks of lessons--so she couldn't afford aparty--and I said I didn't care, but oh! I did. And now I was going tohave a party--like in a book--and I'll never have another chance thelongest day I live. Oh, Jackie--Jackie! Couldn't you----"
She didn't finish the sentence. She just let it trail off hopelesslyinto the dusk.
Jacqueline felt a queer tingling in her palms, and a hot smarting behindher eyes. She was _mad_--mad at Caroline--mad at herself--mad atsomething in herself that was going to make her do what Caroline wanted,and hate herself afterward for doing it.
"Like taking candy off a kid!" That was her new Uncle Jimmie's phrasefor something that was _too_ contemptible for a regular fellow to do.That was what it would be to take Caroline's party away from her. Lether have her old party! But drat Caroline--and double-drat PrinceEdward, whose silly story had let her in for this! Trouble! _He_ didn'tknow the name of trouble!
Jacqueline drew a deep breath, which was rather like a sniffle.
"Aw shucks!" she said disgustedly. "Cut out the sob-stuff, Carol. Oneday is as good as another, far as _I'm_ concerned. You can _have_ yourparty."
Caroline, all moist and crumpled, fell upon her in the dusk.
"Oh, Jackie! You mean it--really? You are the dearest----"
"Oh, dumb-bells!" scoffed Jacqueline. "Stop bawling now. You'll looklike a squashed egg. I tell you, it's all right, and you can have yourparty. So long, now! I've got to beat it home."
She rose, and with a lofty air, patterned on what she thought UncleJimmie would do in similar circumstances, she strode toward the gap inthe hedge. Honestly she tried to whistle as she went. But just as shereached the gap, Caroline came pattering out of the dusk and clutchedher.
"Now don't go and begin all over again!" Jacqueline scolded.
"Please, Jackie!" Caroline's teeth fairly chattered. "I shan't letyou--it isn't fair--it's _your_ party really--it's _you_ Cousin Penelopemeant it for--and I--I didn't tell you all about it. I was afraid you_couldn't_ give it up--if I told you everything. There'll be littlesatin boxes of candy on the table, one for each of us--and darlinglittle dolls, with baskets of nuts--one apiece--to keep--and birds thathold the place-cards--and oh, Jackie, a pie full of presents! You pull astring, each of you, and then----"
"Oh, g'on!" said Jacqueline. "A Jack Horner Pie. I'm fed up on 'em--had'em since I was knee-high to a hopper toad."
"Oh!" gasped Caroline, softly, incredulously.
All in a minute, a self-revealing minute such as she had seldom known,there flooded over Jacqueline the realization of all that she had
hadand taken for granted--all that this other little girl had never known,and valued all the more. She was not angry with Caroline any longer. Shefelt that she was sorrier for her than she had ever been for anybody,and then suddenly she knew that she loved Caroline, poor, little,sobbing Caroline, whom she had it in her power to lift into a heaven ofhappiness.
"Don't go and eat too much at your old party," Jacqueline bade gruffly."Now don't hang on to me like that. I gotta go. And I guess I won't comeback for quite a while."
"But to-morrow----" Caroline hesitated. A hope that she was ashamed oftrembled in her voice.
"I was fooling when I said we'd swap," snapped Jacqueline. "I'm notcoming to-morrow. I'm not coming _near_ this mean old place till I haveto. You hear me? I _like_ it at the farm. I'm going to _stay_ there tillAunt Edie comes, if she doesn't come till next Christmas. And you canjust _stay_ here till you're dead sick of it--the old piano--andstarched people--and prunes and prisms and----"
"Oh, oh! Do you _mean_ that?" Caroline's cry was sheer rapture. "But Icouldn't let----"
Perhaps her honest protest would have moved Jacqueline to recall thepromise she had so rashly made. But just at that moment a clear,imperious voice called: "Jacqueline!" and when both little girls pivotedat that name, they saw a figure, in soft white summer clothes, come intothe dusky garden. It was Cousin Penelope, and by the way in which sheheaded straight down the path toward the spot where they stood, theyknew that she had spied them.